The Realm of Possibility
by hershey-kiss
Summary: No matter how impossible things seem, anything can exist in the everexpanding realm of possibility. Things common and uncommon and, sometimes, things that are both, all linger in this place of the once impossible. Oneshot. RT. Remus POV.


Summary: Too old, too poor and too dangerous just aren't good enough reasons to stop love. No matter how impossible thingsseem, **anything** can exist in the ever-expanding realm of possibility. Things common and uncommon and sometimes, things that are both, all linger in this place of the once impossible. Oneshot. RT. Remus POV.

Author's Note: The dialogue in the hospital wing was not written by me, it is by J.K. Rowling. The narration had to change since this is a different POV, so that's mine, but the dialogue and basic storyline there is all Jo's.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or I would have a computer that didn't freeze every five minutes.

* * *

A woman just threw a pound note at me on the tube.

I was sitting on the bench, drinking convenience mart coffee and staring into space, and this random woman in a tweed coat threw a pound note at me.

I stood up indignantly, letting my coffee spill on the seat (damn, that cost £1.35!), but the woman was out the door before I could say anything.

"I am _not_ homeless," I mutter, looking around the crowded trolley. Several people eye me warily. I'm tempted to give them the finger, but decide against it, as that would be crass.

I catch sight of myself in the window. I have wrinkles around my eyes, my forehead, my mouth. The gray hairs from my youth intermingle with the gray hairs that arose as I grew older. Sirius didn't have gray hairs. We were only in our thirties, he said. It was okay if I was grayer than he was. He would catch up.

Sirius never did catch up. I wonder if the dead still count their age, wherever they are, beyond the veil that he fell through so gracefully.

I consider the pound note, crumpled in my hand. What would I do with it? I could use a new pair of jeans, these have more patches than the original denim. But I can hardly buy a new pair of jeans for one pound. Even at the Cancer Research store.

It isn't until the tube passes SW3 that I realize I'd missed my stop. I sigh, regard myself in the window one last time, and promptly get off the train, onto the next one headed in the opposite direction.

During the brief layover from train to train, I give the pound note the woman gave me to a real homeless man. He regards me with a look that plainly says 'Don't you need it?' I probably do. It could count towards rent, which I can hardly afford since moving out of Sirius' house. I just couldn't take living there anymore. This was his old house. His mother screaming from her frame. His mutinous house-elf. His old room. (Never you mind that he left everything to Harry.) None of it was mine, and I had no right to live there anymore.

And so I got my own flat a few tube stops away from the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, which was still at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. I couldn't afford it, I knew. And I couldn't get a flatmate for obvious reasons. And I refuse to have Tonks pay for anything of mine, even though the girl has more money than God.

The train arrives; the mysterious voice reminding us all to mind the gap.

It occurs to me that Tonks would be a gold-digger if our roles were reversed, and I was the one with money. I smile at this thought, and then wonder why I am smiling.

I was too old, too poor, and too dangerous for her. We'd discussed this at length, with a lot of exasperation on both our parts. She didn't understand why not. I didn't understand why.

She said I deserved more than I'd gotten in life. I asked her to consider that maybe my deserving more was a result of not having it. She kissed me. The kiss tasted like the cinnamon gum she chews.

I wonder what the homeless man did with the pound note. Maybe he spent it on a meal. Or soap. Or drugs. I have no desire to pursue the information. No desire for anything.

When Tonks kissed me, there was a pedophilic feeling that was quickly replaced by a pleasantness that took me aback. I could be her father. Or at least her uncle.

But not her lover.

Yet here I am.

I'm reading a poster about Autism Awareness when the tube comes. I step inside, watching a woman get groped on her way in. She elbows the groper in the midriff. We all applaud. In a previous life I might've hexed the groper ever so discreetly, but I have a new life now, and I'm more apathetic. Can you believe that?

I don't deserve her. She deserves someone with more life left in him. Someone without a bite taken out of them.

She regarded me for a long moment after the monumental kiss, and I her. She smiled, and I joined in for a millisecond before averting my gaze to the floor, away from her. I couldn't stand it, couldn't stand to see the joy in her eyes. Couldn't stand to see the hurt.

I get off at the right stop this time. I feel my wand concealed under my t-shirt, there under strict orders from Moody. Good thing I'm competent at sewing, so I could make a pocket for it. All these years of darning and patching and re-sewing seams have been good for something. A small comfort, that knowledge, but I take it nonetheless.

It's one of those wonderful evenings that lead you to believe London is the best city in the world. But I have no time to contemplate the city and its majesty. I have to go join my lover and my friend's son, now all grown, imagine that. Time is irretrievable. I remember when Harry was still as long as my forearm and now he is taller than I am. He's the same height as James was. I realize that my thoughts sounded as if they belong to somebody's aunt and smile again.

"Wotcher, Remus!" Tonks waves to me from within the crowd, her iguana-green hair sticking out like a beacon. She greets me with a kiss. "We were about to send the Guard searching for you." I shrug, offering no explanations. I notice that she is wearing the jeans with the embroidered heart on the pocket. The ones she was wearing when I first took them off.

"Hey, Lupin." Harry greets me with a nod of his head. "Headquarters, then?"

I nod. We have to do this meeting-up lark regularly because, as far as I could figure, Moody said so.

"We have to keep tabs on who's alive and who isn't," he justified. "We can't afford to be tricked by a polyjuice potion." Tonks rolled her eyes.

She felt dead after I refused her. That was what she told me. I felt dead, too, but mostly I felt worried. Because, you see, being a werewolf is a constant worry. Even with the Wolfsbane potion, it is not safe. For what if I forget to take it that one night, or build up immunity? Could lycanthropy do that, build up resistance to those types of potions? Was it like a disease, or more like a disorder? Should someone with so serious an ailment be around people at all?

I tried to explain this to her. Tonks listened attentively to my spiel, then told me I was being ridiculous and that she loved me regardless. That none of it mattered to her, and there was nothing I could say that she hadn't already taken into account.

Truth be told, I was trying to convince myself in the process. Because Nymphadora Tonks is beautiful and vibrant and caring. I noticed since I met her: when Tonks walks into a room she fills every corner. And it's damn near impossible to ignore someone like that, even for perfectly logical reasons like the ones I repeated to myself every time I felt myself falling.

"I'm not a bleeding child!" She shouted after I repeated my mantra to her one day. _Too old, too poor, too dangerous…too old, too poor, too dangerous…_"I know what I'm getting myself into!" There were tears in her eyes. I apologized, and explained to her that I was just trying to tell her why I couldn't.

But the mantra was getting tiresome.

We reach Number 11, Grimmauld Place, whose occupants are blasting Busta Rhymes out of their windows at top volume. Tonks starts to bop her head along to the beat. I don't even think it's ironic, though you can never be sure with her.

"Don't ring the doorbell," Harry reminds us, rather unnecessarily.

"I still can't believe they never got that stupid picture off the wall," Tonks says, gingerly opening the door. "You figure, all these great wizards put together in one house, and they can't figure out how to take the charm off of one goddamn—"

"BLOOD TRAITORS AND HALF-BREEDS!!!!!!" Sirius' mum rudely interrupts.

"Yes, well—" My lover clears her throat.

"Add it to the to-do list," Harry says sarcastically. "Just before 'defeating Voldemort' and 'killing Snape'."

"I still can't believe—" I start. "No, I'm lying. I can believe it. He always was a grotty little pustule."

"No more bitterness," Tonks orders. "Molly's making stew, can't you smell it?" She sniffs the air eagerly. "Molly! Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Oh dear," Molly says warily from the basement. "You know, I _think_ I've got everything just about ready, Tonks." She pouts. I kiss her on the temple.

Molly had called my excuses for not dating Tonks "ridiculous", but her excuses for not letting the metamorphagus anywhere near the kitchen were nothing short of pitiful.

I knew that Molly cared for Tonks. She and her husband made that perfectly clear during Harry's sixth year. And yet,

"Don't any of you want her to _live_?" I'd exclaimed after another argument with Tonks.

"Of course we do," Arthur sighed. "But she doesn't care about how dangerous you are in wolf form. She loves you. Why turn away love when it's presented to you?"

"It's all right, Remus dear." Molly smiled at me kindly. "It's okay to enjoy yourself a little, you know." That was not fair.

"That's not the issue," I countered.

"Then what is?" Arthur queried.

"There's too much…I don't know, at stake. The sheer idea…She's twenty-six?"

"Mm, yes." Molly said.

"And I'm almost forty."

"You sure are," Molly said with amusement.

"And you lot don't see anything weird about her and me…?"

"The fact is, Remus," Arthur put a hand on my shoulder. "That it isn't our decision. We want Tonks and you, both of you, to be happy."

"And what you're doing right now isn't accomplishing that." Molly pursed her lips before adding, "At all."

"Not at all," Molly says to Hermione, who has joined us in the basement kitchen. "I'd be happy to, no problem." I wonder what Molly's just agreed to when Ron joins us.

"Oh, _thank_ you!" Hermione says sincerely. "It's a wonderful old book, I was just worried if it was particularly valuable or—"

"Hermione, it's fine." Nothing exciting. Hermione spent entirely too much of her time studying, even with no school. She would make a good professor, I thought.

My year teaching…I'd saved loads on rent, at least. And gained back the best friend I'd ever had. And lost one. And a couple of years later lost the first one again. And gained a girlfriend.

Sirius would probably laugh.

"Hey, Lupin," Ron taps my shoulder. "All right?"

"All right." I shrug.

"Hey, listen. You wouldn't happen to know when the next full moon is?"

"Oh, Ron, _honestly_," Hermione groans. "You're still not—"

"It's in a week or so," I answer.

"No, how many days exactly?" Ron shakes his head.

"Six." I check my watch. "And about three hours."

"Thank you. Pay up, Hermione." Her boyfriend outstretches his hand.

"Five days is not such a bad guess. It's not nearly bad enough to pay you ten sickles." Hermione says contentiously.

"Bet's a bet." Ron continues to hold out his hand.

"But—"

"He's right," I say. "Bet's a bet. You don't know how many bets Peter, James, Sirius and I used to make. Not just money, either…It's only fair, Hermione." She shoots me a death glare.

Death. Ha. My three best friends, all either dead or eating it.

The room doesn't notice my sudden melancholy, except for Tonks, who takes my hand in hers. She gives it a squeeze, reminding me that there she is here, solid, mine.

She is good at that, reading moods. And knowing what to do about them. It's like she's a Legilimens, only not as creepy as Snape was. Is.

So she must have known that I loved her, and wanted her. Which must be the reason she never gave up. That, and her natural determination.

Because she never did give up. Half the time, every other day, she would ask me to please, just give it a try. What was the worst that could happen?

The worst that could happen was that I could kill her. But she didn't listen, or didn't care. She even went so far as to bring it up at Bill's bedside after he got bitten, after we all found out Dumbledore had died.

Fleur was so devoted, loved Bill so much. I saw that, who didn't see that? While she was crying, and Molly was crying, Tonks actually glared at me and said,

"You see! She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"

"It's different," I argued through clenched teeth. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely—"

"But I don't care either, I don't care!" Tonks took the front of my robes and shook them. It made my heart hurt. "I've told you a million times…" She trailed off.

"And I've told _you_ a million times that I am too old for you, too poor…too dangerous…" I couldn't meet her eyes. It was just like when we kissed. I couldn't stand to look at her. She was so lovely it felt like killing a unicorn…

"I've said all along you were taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," Molly said, still hugging Fleur. I glared at her. Right, the lectures. How could I forget those?

"I am not being ridiculous," I countered. "Tonks deserves someone young and whole." I'd said that often enough to myself.

"But she wants you," Arthur said kindly. And I couldn't understand why she did. Didn't understand whether I was happy about it or not. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured to Bill, lying in the hospital bed. He looked just like I did when I got bitten. I was young then, just a boy. And I was happy.

Yet here I was.

"This is…not the moment to discuss it," I said, looking around the room for something, anything to focus on besides their eyes. "Dumbledore is dead…"

"Dumbledore," Professor McGonagall interjected, to my surprise, "would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world." The doors opened, and Hagrid stepped in to announce that he'd moved Dumbledore's body. I was eternally grateful to him for saving me from them. All of them.

Dawn, spreading out her fingertips of rose, found me crying by the Whomping Willow. Sobbing as I hadn't since the first full moon after I'd gotten bit. More than I did when my own father died.

"Remus?" Tonks came up, knocking on the Whomping Willow like it was a doorframe. I'd pressed the knot in the trunk earlier.

"Yeah?" I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my robe. Don't think I hadn't noticed how freaked out Harry looked when I'd broken in the hospital room.

"It feels weird to see you crying," she said.

"Yeah, well." I looked up to prevent the next onslaught of tears.

"When I was younger," Tonks said, walking over to where I was standing and nearly tripping on a root. "I used to be the biggest baby. I would cry at the drop of a hat."

I looked at her, her mousy hair in the moonlight, her palms and the scratches on them. She added, "I suppose you weren't like that."

"Not so much." I said.

Pause.

"It's just one," Tonks said, "of the many things that are very, very different about the two of us."

"Tonks," I moaned. She regarded me, resting her head on my shoulder.

"Do you love me?" She asked suddenly.

"Tonks, I've told you we—"

"I didn't ask about that." She looked up at my face. "I asked if you love me. I think I deserve an answer."

I thought for a moment. Not so much about the answer. I knew the answer. But about whether I should tell her the answer.

"Yes," I said. "I love you."

"So," she moved her face closer to mine. "Why can't we at least try?" She kissed me again. When our lips met, we held them still for a second. She tasted sweet, like chamomile. I expected I tasted like tears. When she opened her lips I did likewise in spite of myself. We pressed the tips of our tongues together and closed our mouths again. I stroked the back of her neck, slid my hands along the slopes of her shoulders. She moved hers down around my waist. When our mouths finally pulled apart we kept our arms around each other. It was almost enough to make me start crying again.

I look over at Tonks now. She is rubbing her arms. She is cold. Sirius' basement is freezing. I hadn't noticed before. I come up behind her and rub her arms for her. She leans into me, all her lovely weight dependant on mine.

"Oi, lovebirds!" Ron hollers from the other side of the room. "Dinner's on! It's gonna be just about impossible to get Ginny an' Harry away from each other." He grins.

Here is what I think about the realm of possibility: it is always expanding, never what you think it is. Everything around us was once deemed impossible. From the stew stirring itself on the stove to the airplane overhead to Bill and Fleur getting married. We all exist within the realm of possibility. Most of our limits are of our own world's devising. And yet, every day we do so many things that were once impossible for us.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of reasons for Tonks and me to be impossible, most of which I have repeated like a broken record. Not even considering that one hundred and fifty years ago, her family was living in aristocratic London while mine was in a small town in Wales. I'm willing to bet they could have never pictured their children here, now.

Yet here we are. Forgetting our ages, ignoring all the strange and tragic roads that led us to this time and place, looking past my lycanthropy, there is still the simple impossibility of love. That all of our contradicting securities and insecurities, interests and disinterests, beliefs and doubts could somehow translate into this common uncommon affection. This should be as impossible as walking to the moon.

But instead, I love her.

I wrap my arms around her. Hold her. We stand there, breathing together. Moments into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into years, years into possibility.

This will linger.


End file.
